Développement d'une infrastructure française distribuée pour la métabolomique dédiée à l'innovation

Metabolomics (identification and quantification of small molecules in living systems) and fluxomics (measurement of metabolic reaction rates in biological systems) are two technological fields supporting modern biology. Applications cover all areas of life sciences, from agriculture to health, environmental studies and biotechnology. Since 2013, the French national infrastructure MetaboHUB (MTH) has addressed major priorities in metabolomics, fluxomics and bioinformatics by (i) delivering high-throughput metabolomic workflows from cells to populations, (ii) annotating metabolomes, (iii) developing advanced flux measurement approaches, (iv) providing high value-added services to scientists and industry, (v) training a new generation of users and researchers. 

The ambition of MTH brings together a unique combination of analytical platforms (68 mass spectrometers, 16 NMR instruments and 7 robotic platforms), digital tools (online open-access services, with >3000 users worldwide) and human resources (150 scientists, 70 permanent FTEs) offering capabilities far beyond a single facility. MTH significantly increased the throughput of metabolomics and fluxomics studies, while also expanding the number of metabolites analyzed. The integration of AI and metabolic phenotyping has enabled predictive studies on plant metabolic responses to extreme climatic conditions. MTH has also built a unique computational resource using literature mining to predict over one million associations between metabolites and biological concepts. 

Since its creation, MTH has doubled the number of projects handled annually, engaging broad academic and non-academic scientific communities. Its cross-disciplinary nature has enabled the co-construction of projects with other national and international infrastructures in biology and health. Since 2022, MTH has been the first national infrastructure in health and biology to conduct an annual greenhouse gas emissions assessment across all 16 of its sites.